Northwest passages

Books reviewed in the June-July issue of Canada’s Historymagazine include Ken McGoogan’s Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage. Reviewer Dave Obee calls the book “superb” and says it “reflects the increasing awareness and acknowledgement of Indigenous involvement in the exploration of the North, as well as rescue missions.”

Charlotte Gray reviews two books: Sarah Glasford’s Mobilizing Mercy: A History of the Canadian Red Cross and Linda J. Quiney’s This Small Army of Women: Canadian Volunteer Nurses and the First World War. And in the same issue Lyle Dick writes about Adam Shoalts’s A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land and Barbara Mitchell’s Mapmaker: Philip Turnor in Rupert’s Land in the Age of Enlightenment.

Other books highlighted in this issue include Rivals for Power: Ottawa and the Provinces, by Ed Whitcomb; The Raftsmen, by Ryan Barnett, with illustrations by Dmitry Bondarenko; and The Endless Battle: The Fall of Hong Kong and Canadian POWs in Imperial Japan, by Andy Flanagan.

Our book reviews can be found both in Canada’s History magazine and on our CanadasHistory.cawebsite.

Travelling solo

Along with the many Canadian history titles released each year by dedicated publishers, we receive a handful of self-published books. On our website we’ve highlighted a selection of these books that includes stories of policing, immigration, mining, environmental catastrophes, and archaeological finds, as well as one historical fiction title. See the list here.

Highways to history

Recipients of the Reading Den are automatically entered to win a bundle of three Canadian-history books courtesy of Penguin Random House Canada. One winner will receive Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier, by David Johnston and Tom Jenkins, A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land, by Adam Shoalts, and Original Highways: Travelling the Great Rivers of Canada, by Roy MacGregor.